When revising your Linton summary, let these question be your guide. These questions I have created after reading your summary writing of "Talk" and of the Linton essay:
1) Is your first sentence an overarching one-sentence summary where you correctly punctuate the title, give the author's name, and then the overall gist of the article?
2) Do you use a strong verb from pg. 164 in Blakesley in the first sentence: for example, "In "Reassigning Meaning," Simi Linton argues that...
3) Do you use present tense to describe the artifact: for example, "Linton explains..." or "the text demonstrates..."
4) When you have a quotation from the text, do you use parenthetical citations that include the page number? For example, "language reinforces the dominant culture's view of disability" (223).
5) When you paraphrase, do you use parenthetical citations that include the page number? For example: Linton argues that language maintains status quo ways of thinking about disability (223).
6) Do you refer to the author throughout the summary? As one example, you might write, "Linton goes on to say that..." You want to create a continuous thread that gives the author subjecthood and agency.
7) In addition to telling the "what," do you also tell the "why"? In other words, do you include the significance, the purpose, and the larger picture?
8) Are you varying your sentence length? If all of your sentences are short then your writing will appear choppy.
9) Are you sure your summary has accurately conveyed what the text is trying to communicate? Read over your summary out loud and be sure you are using precise language to accurately communicate what the author is doing or saying.
10) Did you leave any important information out? Is there information that you included that is unnecessary.
11) Be sure the summary is only one or two paragraphs (some of you have indented every line). A really good summary-writer can fit it all into one well-written paragraph, but two is also ok.
12) Go back and re-read (perhaps out loud) to check for errors. In other words proofread. Also spell-check the document.
13) Do you attribute the ideas to the author throughout the summary by writing "Linton argues...", "Linton tells us that..." and so on throughout the summary?
1) Is your first sentence an overarching one-sentence summary where you correctly punctuate the title, give the author's name, and then the overall gist of the article?
2) Do you use a strong verb from pg. 164 in Blakesley in the first sentence: for example, "In "Reassigning Meaning," Simi Linton argues that...
3) Do you use present tense to describe the artifact: for example, "Linton explains..." or "the text demonstrates..."
4) When you have a quotation from the text, do you use parenthetical citations that include the page number? For example, "language reinforces the dominant culture's view of disability" (223).
5) When you paraphrase, do you use parenthetical citations that include the page number? For example: Linton argues that language maintains status quo ways of thinking about disability (223).
6) Do you refer to the author throughout the summary? As one example, you might write, "Linton goes on to say that..." You want to create a continuous thread that gives the author subjecthood and agency.
7) In addition to telling the "what," do you also tell the "why"? In other words, do you include the significance, the purpose, and the larger picture?
8) Are you varying your sentence length? If all of your sentences are short then your writing will appear choppy.
9) Are you sure your summary has accurately conveyed what the text is trying to communicate? Read over your summary out loud and be sure you are using precise language to accurately communicate what the author is doing or saying.
10) Did you leave any important information out? Is there information that you included that is unnecessary.
11) Be sure the summary is only one or two paragraphs (some of you have indented every line). A really good summary-writer can fit it all into one well-written paragraph, but two is also ok.
12) Go back and re-read (perhaps out loud) to check for errors. In other words proofread. Also spell-check the document.
13) Do you attribute the ideas to the author throughout the summary by writing "Linton argues...", "Linton tells us that..." and so on throughout the summary?